The Samsung Galaxy S7 is an amazing phone. Two of its features — a best-in-the-world camera and water resistance — promised a tantalizing possibility: underwater photography.
T-Mobile's underwater unboxing video seemed to show that reality. Here's a GIF:
So of course the first thing I did when the Galaxy S7 landed in our office was turn on selfie mode and dunk it in a glass of water. The camera stayed on. So did the screen. Everything looked great! So I made a goofy face and reached into the glass to take the shot.
...and nothing happened.
I tried again. And again. But the touchscreen wouldn't work! Our resident phone geek Antonio Villas-Boas ran into the same problem.
In the meantime, I found a pretty great work-around — one that shows off the underwater phone along with your face.
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The trick is this: Dunk the device, then take the picture with an iPhone.
But there's another problem with this method: Swishes and swirls underwater mess with the touch screen and tend to navigate away from the touchscreen after a few seconds. Put the phone in some very still water and it won't happen though. Also, it looks pretty silly taking a "selfie" with another phone.
There's another solution, though!
Here's a picture made with the phone under about a centimeter of water on a plate, using the down-volume button as a camera trigger:
Voila!
But that's not a very representative situation — and you can barely tell the phone's underwater.
To simulate the more active turbulence of actual underwater photography, I dropped the phone in a deeper well of seltzer. But before I could get a single shot off, the bubbles navigated away from the screen. No dice!
I put the phone in video mode to show just how fast that happens. When the GIF ends, that's the phone navigating away.
So, is the Galaxy S7 an underwater camera? Sort of. But I wouldn't recommend it.
